The Cat hides its Claws

“Like this, you idiot.”

The man quickly hid behind the taps, but of course Myohan wasn’t going to let him escape like that. He jumped up to the taps, the hose now in his hands.

Water started to come out of it. Myohan’s mop was lying in the dirt now. But the man didn’t fear the jet of water and moved. He dodged, came to Myohan and grabbed the hose, making water splatter everywhere. Myohan angrily took the hose again and growled.

“You show up after three days, and this is what you do?”

“You asked me how I am going to catch the rat.”

“And this is your answer? Huh?”

Myohan threateningly waved the hose. The man was fast, but he couldn’t dodge the strong jet of water forever. He eventually took the attack and raised both hands.

“Well, now I’m soaked too, so it’s even, right?”

“Of course not. I will give you twice of what you gave me.”

Myohan’s revenge wasn’t over yet, and he fired water to him again. But then two things he hadn’t been able to expect happened. One, the man dodged his attack with his great reflexes. Two, there was a student he had never seen before standing where the man had been standing a second ago.

“…Oh.”

It happened just too suddenly. The good student, who was there just to wash his mop, got the spray of water instead of the man.

“Oh, my.”

Then he turned into an animal.

“You shouldn’t pour water on a stranger like that.”

Into the rat they had been looking for.

“What the….”

“What did I tell you?”

The man smiled playfully. Water was still coming out of the hose Myohan was holding. The man turned off the tap instead and shrugged to Myohan.

“I told you we would find him.”

Myohan met the rat’s eyes. It was hiding in its own school uniform, and he could see it bury its face in its front paws. Both the uniform and the rat were damp now. The man raised it by its neck.

“You know, there’s an old saying…”

The rat twisted in his hand, demanding to be put down. It chittered and waved its short legs. It pitifully thrashed, but the man didn’t let it go. He just put it right in front of Myohan’s face to finish his sentence.

“About a soaked rat.”

The rat gave up fighting. It was just a rat, but it somehow looked so pitiful that Myohan laughed.

“We’ve caught a soaked rat.”

Actually, Myohan hadn’t believed what he said, both about how he would stop turning into a cat when they found all the twelve, and that there were other people who turned into animals. He had lived for 18 years already, but he hadn’t seen anyone like that.

Yet, he had just witnessed an ordinary student turn into a rat. It looked quite bewildered, and Myohan was extremely shocked. The only one who remained calm was the man. Myohan didn’t know what to say at first, but the man patiently waited for him.

“…So it is real.”

“I never lie.”

“This is crazy.”

Crazy. That one word was enough to express everything he was feeling right now. He kept muttering the word and jumped down the taps. He stood in front of the man and grabbed the rat, making it shriek angrily.

“Okay.”

Myohan took the rat from the man and put it on his hand. It rolled up into a ball and looked up at Myohan between its paws.

“I’ll help you.”

Myohan tapped the man’s shoulder. He had promised to help if he found the rat within a week. He had said it willingly, and he was going to keep his promise. Plus, he had to find out more about the dream he had the night before. The man’s lips curled up in satisfaction. It was then when the frightened rat suddenly started to cry.

“Who’s been playing with water?”

They could see someone, probably a teacher, running to them. Well they had been having one hell of a water fight, and of course it couldn’t go unnoticed. Myohan quickly picked up the rat’s clothes and yelled.

“Run!”

The rat also started to cry in his hand. Myohan was really good at running away.

They headed to Myohan’s home. School was over, so it was okay to do so. He didn’t like his bag was still at school, but it wasn’t like anything bad was going to happen to it overnight.

“Ugh! Hey!”

The rat-student had an extremely annoying voice. He stomped his feet and frowned, and the way he talked sounded like a chittering rat.

“Aren’t you crazy? Who do you think you are to splatter water on a complete stranger? Huh? Are you kidding me? You’re going to tell everyone about this, aren’t you? That I turn into a rat? Uuuugh! And I couldn’t even do my cleaning duty because of you?”

His name was Lee Jagyeom. The nametag on his school uniform said so. He turned back into human exactly an hour after he turned into a rat. As soon as it happened, he put on his clothes and started to shout angrily. He chittered a lot as a rat, but now that he was a human, he was even noisier.

“Maybe we should pour water on him again.”

Jagyeom heard the man mutter so and closed his mouth, flinching. But Myohan shook his head.

“Don’t. We can’t have a conversation with a rat.”

“You….bastards! You want to pour water on me again? Is making fun of me so enjoyable to you? What’s wrong with you?”

“There’s a bucket in the bathroom.”

“I’ll go get it.”

“Hey!”

But Jagyeon grabbed Myohan’s arm. The man, who was on his way to the bathroom to get water, stopped to see it. Jagyeom looked at Myohan with tears in his eyes.

“Please, no water….”

Myohan could understand him. Of course he hated turning into a rat. Myohan could relate to it, so he tutted and nodded.

“Only if you stop chittering. It’s too noisy.”

Jagyeom looked like he wanted to protest, but then he saw Myohan narrow his eyes, he decided not to say anything. A cat was also a predator to a rat. Of course those feline eyes made him shudder.

“You’re Lee JagyeoM, right? I’m O Myohan. Junior, Class One.”

“I know. You clean the hallway every day.”

“Only for this week. And this is—”

But Myohan had to stop there and look up at the man. Now that he thought about it, he knew nothing about the man. How old was he? Where did he live? What was his name?

Then the man felt the gaze and slowly talked.

“….O Shin.”

“Osin?”

“O, Shin.”

“So your family name is O and your name is Shin?”

He nodded, slowly but surely. Myohan snorted angrily and muttered.

“What an arrogant name.”

Jagyeom rolled his eyes. He was small, but now that he was cringing in fear, he looked even smaller.

“You said something about finding me or something earlier. What did you mean by that?”

“Oh,” Myohan exclaimed. He had forgotten all about it because of Jagyeom’s annoying protests. But he found explaining himself too bothersome, so he just looked at O Shin, demanding him to talk.

“He is looking for the twelve zodiac animals.”

“I told you, it’s ‘us’, not ‘me’ alone.”

Jagyeom’s eyes widened. He looked like a surprised baby animal.

“The twelve zodiac animals?”

“Yes. There are twelve people who turn into animals like you, and they are the twelve zodiac animals?”

“There are others who turn into animals like me?”

“Yes, there are. I…”

But O Shin lightly hit his shoulder before Myohan could finish the sentence. He looked at him, and O Shin’s calmly voice spoke instead.

“There are eleven others. I must find them, and you must help me.”

It was the method he had used with Myohan. Myohan thought, ‘That’s not going to work’, and at the same time, Jagyeom angrily protested he wasn’t obliged to help. But then O Shin smiled and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Do you want to turn into a rat in front of a huge crowd?”

“Hup!!”

“They won’t leave you alone once they find out you’re a rat.”

Wow, he’s a really evil bastard. Myohan couldn’t help but be impressed. He wondered for a second if he had been blackmailed like that as well. Luckily, he couldn’t recall it.

“You’re going to help, right?”

Jagyeom seemed to think it was totally unfair, but he couldn’t find anything to say. There was no way to escape O Shin and Myohan. Turning into a rat when touching water was a great weakness. A lot of bad things had happened to him because of it. Moving, transferring, and eventually taking a middle school qualification test to enter the high school he was currently attending.

He had survived a year there, and life had never been happy, but now he had been caught as soon as he became a junior. He looked like wanted to cry, much like Myohan only a few days ago. Of course, O Shin had mercy on neither of them.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Wait, wait!”

“What?”

“Are there really eleven others?”

O Shin just nodded.

“And what are you going to do to us when you find us all?”

It was similar to the question Myohan had asked, but while Myohan asked about his own future, Jagyeom was talking about ‘us’. Myohan wished O Shin would use the word.

“I’ll tell you when we find them all.”

“But how can I trust you two?”

“You two?” Myohan frowned, not glad to be grouped with O Shin. It made Jagyeom quickly lose his courage.

“…You’re not going to sell us or something, right?”

“I’m not.”

That answer came without any hesitation. O Shin sounded confident, which seemed to make Jagyeom relax a little. If this wasn’t about a physical experiment or being sold off to the media, he had no reason to be too afraid. He let out a sigh and then asked again in his usual shrill voice.

“So where are they?”

That was a foolish question. O Shin had said, ‘You must help to find them’, so asking where they were wasn’t going to get them anywhere. O Shin just smiled.

“That’s what we have to find out.”

Myohan could feel deja-vu. He was saying the same thing he had said to Myohan.

“But how?”

“Oh, about that…”

Myohan knew what O Shin was about to say. He turned aside and mouthed what O Shin said simultaneously.

“You are going to find out how.”

Passing of responsibility. That was what O Shin was really good at.